A great film at every level that deserves to be re-examined. Mickey is of course the definitive Mike Hammer in The Girl Hunters, but after that I'm a Biff Elliot man all the way as the best of the rest in his portrayal of Hammer. The tone of the movie matches the book perfectly. There are some hazy plot patches because of censorship codes, but maybe Mickey didn't like the film because Biff's doing such a dead-on impression of Mickey. Somewhere on YouTube there's a version with a commentary by Biff, who's rightfully proud of his performance and grumbles that he'd like to kick Mickey in the privates for ruining the film's reputation by always badmouthing it. Me, I'm a Mickey man through and through. But Biff was right on that one.
I thought Biff was just right in this, too. Tough, genuine, explosive and not overly smart. It was also interesting seeing future substitute Stooge Joe Besser as the elevator man.
Spillane said some guy yelled "DAT'S MIKE HAMMA ??" at a showing.
ReplyDeleteA great film at every level that deserves to be re-examined. Mickey is of course the definitive Mike Hammer in The Girl Hunters, but after that I'm a Biff Elliot man all the way as the best of the rest in his portrayal of Hammer. The tone of the movie matches the book perfectly. There are some hazy plot patches because of censorship codes, but maybe Mickey didn't like the film because Biff's doing such a dead-on impression of Mickey. Somewhere on YouTube there's a version with a commentary by Biff, who's rightfully proud of his performance and grumbles that he'd like to kick Mickey in the privates for ruining the film's reputation by always badmouthing it. Me, I'm a Mickey man through and through. But Biff was right on that one.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Mertz all the way on this. Biff was a great Mike Hammer. The new Blu-ray and DVD of THE GIRL HUNTERS comes out today (I write about it here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.maxallancollins.com/blog/2014/10/21/mickey-spillane-is-mike-hammer/
If we can someday get a 3-D Blu-ray of I, THE JURY, life will have been worth living.
I thought Biff was just right in this, too. Tough, genuine, explosive and not overly smart. It was also interesting seeing future substitute Stooge Joe Besser as the elevator man.
ReplyDeleteI have a signed copy of the poster.
ReplyDelete